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The Amusements, and More Bloody Wu Lyf

We’re all waiting aren’t we? For Wu Lyf, I mean. Who else did you expect?

And we all know the score now: they’re the plucky, idiosyncratic, Last Gang In Town, with heels in the gutter and eyes firmly affixed on the stars. They play low-key gigs but those lucky few who attend leave as babbling converts.

Don’t listen to those rumours of vast cash-injections and massive industry weight behind them: they have been quickly quashed – by, er, the industry.

Their move into the public’s wider consciousness is heralded by this video for their new song, which has the appearance – and appeal – of a boyband doing a mock ‘serious band’ dress-up shoot for Comic Relief. To a Simple Minds song.

If this is the long awaited Next Step, then we can deduce two things: that it’s either a deliberate pre-emptive April Fools gag; or that when they stop taking all these steps along the Road Of Rock, they’ll take stock and realise that they have become U2.

Don’t get me wrong: I genuinely want Wu Lyf to succeed. I hugely admire their attempts at doing it differently – but the hype is so suffocatingly heavy now, how big will the fall be if, like Flavor Flav preached, people don’t believe it?

Oh yes. I forgot. Today’s new band is The Amusements:

Poor old The Amusements, buried under a glut of Wu Lyf word-vomit. They won’t be the first band.

But then they, like Wu Lyf, are another band who provide no photos of themselves for publicity, so they’re not helping themselves in that respect. (NB: The above photo was the result of Googling for “the amusements”. It’ll do.)

It’s a shame, because The Trip has everything going for it: a thrilling power-punk pop blast, with guitars that crunch, twang and jerk- and the song clocks in at under two minutes long.

All pop songs should be this short. All pop songs should be this alive, spasmodic and carefree. I just wish all pop bands wouldn’t be so coy.